Lol this encapsulates SF’s freak out over everything and nothing. Are there electric scooters? Umm, they exist, I suppose. A couple. That you can occasionally spot. But lol at “scores of companies studding SF sidewalks with an abundance of electric scooters.”

Arriving late to this forum so I apologize if this has been answered, but every morning I see rows of bikes downtown that had been neatly set up, that are knocked down like dominos. Vandals? Competitors? Angry joggers? Does anyone know why this is happening?

tanzoak wrote:Lol this encapsulates SF’s freak out over everything and nothing. Are there electric scooters? Umm, they exist, I suppose. A couple. That you can occasionally spot. But lol at “scores of companies studding SF sidewalks with an abundance of electric scooters.”

At least in the financial district, they were everywhere the first few days until the city confiscated them. And they were being left in places where people could easily trip over them.

Glad the city is passing rules to get them regulated. Would not want to happen here with these what I saw in Dallas with the bicycles during my last visit.

willyk wrote:Arriving late to this forum so I apologize if this has been answered, but every morning I see rows of bikes downtown that had been neatly set up, that are knocked down like dominos. Vandals? Competitors? Angry joggers? Does anyone know why this is happening?

I have asked myself the same thing numerous times... It's far too often to see for it to be disgruntled people causing mischief. My thought is that the wind is to blame. But, maybe I think too highly of society as a whole (that would be a first).

willyk wrote:Arriving late to this forum so I apologize if this has been answered, but every morning I see rows of bikes downtown that had been neatly set up, that are knocked down like dominos. Vandals? Competitors? Angry joggers? Does anyone know why this is happening?

I live on Cedar Springs and watch pedestrians drunk and non-drunk kick them over all the time. Mostly for the fun of watching them fall. Its become that be part of the problem behavior that pisses me off. It's bad enough when someone just parks it awkwardly across a sidewalk but when they are all lined up neatly and kicked over at night and during the daylight hours you are the problem not the bike rental company.

utgf wrote:At least in the financial district, they were everywhere the first few days until the city confiscated them. And they were being left in places where people could easily trip over them.

Glad the city is passing rules to get them regulated. Would not want to happen here with these what I saw in Dallas with the bicycles during my last visit.

According to my wife, who works in the financial district, apparently there was in fact about a week where there were lots of them, and I just missed it. I don't share your confidence in SF's regulatory decision-making, though.

Dallas bikeshare, on the other hand, is nothing short of miraculous. When I was in Dallas in mid-January, it totally blew me away (and apparently has increased since then), and the initial data is just as impressive. The first six-month ridership compared favorably with ridership for Ford GoBike (Bay Area Bike Share) four years into the program (plus multi-year prior planning process!). And that's with the first two months of Dallas' barely having any bikes and the months after it had real lift-off being in the winter. All this despite Dallas having essentially zero bike infrastructure, no biking culture, hostile roads that are too wide and fast to share, and land use that's very spread out.

The City's hands-off regulatory approach is the first time I've been genuinely impressed with Dallas leadership. It's what allowed this exceptional performance. They wisely recognized that the worst that could happen was a little clutter, and they could deal with regulations to address that after the program had gotten off the ground, rather than feel the need to get everything exactly perfect from the start (which is impossible, particularly with something new like this) and risk suffocating it at birth. The City spent next to no money, time, or effort, and in exchange got an extensive bikeshare system with promising early ridership in a place totally hostile to non-auto transport. That's a job well done!

Uptown is starting to put in bike racks, but no one wants to put their bikes in them...Across the street were more neatly lined up Lime Bikes as well so the companies aren't putting them in there either. Also, am I crazy or are those slots in the rack too close together to put bikes in next to each other?

What the hell. To be honest, I wouldn't have enough recognized that as a bike rack. If no one at the City has ever locked a bike before, it's not that tough to just ask someone if this makes any sense.

I have some hot-off-the-presses FREE CONSULTING ADVICE: just do u-racks.

They don't take up much room, are easy to lock to, provide two points of contact, and are secure. They look like this:

For narrower sidewalks, you can rotate like this so that they only take up like 6 inches of width:

These racks were not installed by the City. This type of rack is not preferred since it does not provide stability for the bike and can cause damage to the front wheel. The City usually installs 'U' racks.

soco wrote:These racks were not installed by the City. This type of rack is not preferred since it does not provide stability for the bike and can cause damage to the front wheel. The City usually installs 'U' racks.

I've locked a bike once or twice.

Not to mention... You probably could have gotten a dozen of those simple 'hoop' racks for the price of this one. But, hey... at least they're trying.

According to an initial proposal from Dallas city staff Wednesday, bike operators will pay the city $776 for an initial permit and $18 per bike per year to operate in Dallas. Permit renewals will run half the initial fee — $388. That cash will pay the salaries of four full-time city employees — City Council member Lee Kleinman praised the plan for being revenue neutral — who will then make sure that the bike companies are abiding by the other rules in the contract.

Those rules, which should be tweaked a little in the weeks before the vote, require that no bike be left in the same spot for more than two days if its in a residential neighborhood or seven days anywhere else. Bikes can't be left on their sides for more than two hours, according to the proposed ordinance, nor can they be parked on a sidewalk less than 8 feet wide or on a wheelchair ramp. The city also plans to identify and paint potential parking spaces for the bikes.

According to representatives from the bike companies at City Hall on Wednesday, the number of bike-share bikes in the city is down considerably from its peak of about 18,000 this winter. The three biggest companies in the city — ofo, Limebike and VBikes — reported having 5,000, 3,000 and 1,000 bikes in Dallas, respectively. Despite the decrease, Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway complained, as he has numerous times over the last six months, that the city wasn't getting a docked bike-share program, despite the fact that Dallas has turned down that idea numerous times because of cost.

This sounds like an interesting way to deal with all the bike share programs. I haven't exactly seen the specifics on how other cities are dealing with this, so I can't really comment on how Dallas compares. My only concern is that $18 per bike seems a little high, and I'm just hoping we don't scare away bike sharing completely by going too hard on restrictions.

I know bike-sharing isn't exactly popular in Dallas, but I really that residents and bike share companies could have (eventually) found a way to handle bike sharing on their own without too much city intervention.

Revenue neutral? For the city, perhaps... and only for now. This is a good way to chase companies away, reduce service to citizens, and do nothing to improve bicycle infrastructure (paint? really?). As these startups round up their bikes to take them to the next city, there will be no revenue here, and we will end up with four city employees that do little other than draw from the general fund. Way to go Dallas!They should have gone with a more gradual/phased approach, and had some of the regulations go into effect based on city benchmarks (like, bike racks every 1/8th mile in urban areas).

They developed these regulations meeting with representatives from all the bike share companies. You could even call it collusion if you wanted to say the current companies probably made sure things were perfect for them and no one else. Like how Yellow Cab submitted regulations for UBER and LYFT and the mayor actually noticed.

Meaning the existing bike share companies are all okay and on board with these changes but they want to prevent any new competitors from entering the space?

There are 5 current bike share companies operating in Dallas- no way regulations are tight enough to prevent a 6th. The fees don't seem egregious either - that's only 18 rides (right? or about 2 days worth per the most used bikes) so another 363 days at current prices for all the other costs of business operations. And it puts a soft cap on the max number of bikes they can afford to operate.

Yes, the city held meetings WITH the Bikeshare companies to develop these regulations. The companies know regulations are going to come either way and fees are just a reality so the Ofo's, Limbike etc made sure they had a seat at the table. Afterall other cities could use Dallas regulations as guidelines for their own and those companies want to make sure precedence is in their favor.

That's re-assuring to know. The last thing I wanted to happen was for Dallas to set some regulations that sent all of these companies away.

If this was a collaborative effort, then this sounds like a good play. I'd imagine the city is happy, the bike share companies are happy, and it sounds like the regulations address the main problem which is the 'mess' which these bikes have caused.

I'm hoping that people will also hold themselves accountable, and will be less likely to trash these bikes if they see that the city is taking better care of them.

Meaning the existing bike share companies are all okay and on board with these changes but they want to prevent any new competitors from entering the space?

There are 5 current bike share companies operating in Dallas- no way regulations are tight enough to prevent a 6th. The fees don't seem egregious either - that's only 18 rides (right? or about 2 days worth per the most used bikes) so another 363 days at current prices for all the other costs of business operations. And it puts a soft cap on the max number of bikes they can afford to operate.

I'm curious where the number above comes from... I can't find any official numbers of rides per bike per day, but according to LimeBike numbers... If you divide their total number of bikes (averaged 3k for their stats, but up to 5k by the end), by the number of total miles ridden (640 per day), by the number of miles per ride (1.3 in Dallas), you come up with 3.6 rides per bike per day. Honestly, even that number seems inflated. But an average of '9 rides per bike per day' seems almost comical.

I'm sure it's on a distribution where the most popular are above and the least popular well below- and closer to 1-2 per week. But even at "3.6 rides per bike per day" on average, that's only 6 days or 359 days more for other business costs.

I don't find 3-5 rides per per bike per day on average to be that far off. There are 5 companies now - people are using them. I see people riding them even in the suburbs all the time.

cowboyeagle05 wrote:Afterall other cities could use Dallas regulations as guidelines for their own and those companies want to make sure precedence is in their favor.

It's crazy to think that Dallas could be leading the charge with anything bike related. I'm definitely not complaining, but before V-Bike showed up (which wasn't even that long ago), I had pretty much accepted the fact that it would be at least a decade before biking was taken seriously here.

They are being ridden all over downtown by people of all backgrounds. They are a good thing. Some light regulation is needed and I hope the city doesn't go too far. I would like the data to lead to more bike lanes being put in where people use bikes, and hopefully a network of bike/pedestrian only thoroughfares.

In case no one ran into the article here is some proof that while the city may have worked with the bike share companies on regulations it sounds like the city may still have been too aggressive on fees.

Everett Weiler, the general manager of ofo Texas, said in a statement that Dallas' new fees are too high and will likely limit bike-share bikes to high-traffic central locations.

We're fully supportive of smart regulations that promote innovation and protect consumer safety, and we’re certainly willing to pay our fair share to operate in Dallas," Weiler said. "However, these exorbitant fees would be among the highest in the country and severely limit residents’ access to affordable, convenient transportation as providers focus solely on the urban core where demand is highest, harming those in underserved areas who truly need more choice."

The city has to promote the use of these bikes in many areas of town, not just Uptown. Whether it's quickly revitalizing West Dallas or South Dallas or North Dallas. DART should have a promotion with them. DART trains have the problem of the last mile. They don't go right to peoples door stop so they need connective transit that connects the last of the dots. DART should feature these bikes at their transit stops.

Regulation or not, I'm guessing it was bound to happen at some point. The market was flooded so quickly and aggressively that it seemed just a matter of time before one or two (or more) of the companies decided to back out.

Hopefully we're able to retain a couple of them and the city starts focusing on better biking street infrastructure.

I haven't seen more than 5 bikes a week since and I live in Oak Lawn and work Downtown and ride the DART bus to work. Seems like the city did scare them all off with their fees. The only bikes I have seen left are a few Limes and Ofo's. Spin disappeared and so did VBike best I can tell. All I am seeing now is Lime and Bird Scooters.

After a high of 5 bikeshare companies represented in Dallas, we will be down to 2: VBike and LimeBike. Ofo and Spin said in the last few weeks they will pull out, now Mobike is reportedly joining them. As for scooters, the city has said there is currently a 6-month trial for those before a decision is made on them.

I would think that once the city fees were announced, the companies ran the numbers on how many rides they had and deducted the fees. The result was probably a losing proposition so they got out now. Not sure the two left are profitable either. They may be counting on increased demand due to less competition. Just my thoughts but rooting for the local company to figure it out and succeed. It sure seemed to me the hat a lot of those bikes were being used.

I don't think the fees were a driver, exactly. Ofo (the Chinese yellow one) exited Phoenix and a bunch of other cities at the same time. Not sure if they all enacted ordnances at the same time or if Dallas or some other city's high fees drove them out of business. As far as I can tell, they were poorly capitalized, overextended and are refocusing on a few (as in 2-3) core cities.

According to the story, the bikes that were still in working condition were said to have been donated to non-profits. What's notable about this is that Mayor Mike Rawlings retweeted someone's screengrab of the mountain o' bikes with the word "Terrible" in order to stir up the public about the disposal of these bikes.

What irks me about this entire saga is how armchair-quarterback-y everything has felt. "Oh, there are too many bikes on the sidewalks, take them away." "Oh, there are all these bikes in a recycling center, give them to other people." I realize this forum is essentially a collection of armchair quarterbacks, but to me there's a difference between griping about the aesthetics of a particular building versus griping about the burden inflicted upon the public by an affordable, accessible and not-incredibly obtrusive form of transportation.

but to me there's a difference between griping about the aesthetics of a particular building versus griping about the burden inflicted upon the public by an affordable, accessible and not-incredibly obtrusive form of transportation.

To me, the number of ridiculous news articles put out about them (including the one that just put out an entire new urbanism issue) is particularly galling. I swear every journalist in Dallas is some angry geriatric grousing about the 'youths'.

...so I'm curious, does the city still try to float a bike rental deal at Fair Park?

also, Funny how this bike share deal has played out, one company comes to town, then all companies come to town making it impossible for any of them to stay in business. Selling usage data appears to generate the profit for all of these companies, so maybe they really only needed a couple months worth of data to be directive, and maybe some planned the quick entry and just as quick exit. Perhaps the cheap, disposable bikes were always intended to end up at a scrap metal place or whatever.

tamtagon wrote:...so I'm curious, does the city still try to float a bike rental deal at Fair Park?

I was there this past weekend and they still had the docked bikes by the Texas Discovery Gardens. I would be shocked if anyone rides them. $5.00 for the first half hour (or hour), then $2.50 per half hour after that. Insanity!

tamtagon wrote:...so I'm curious, does the city still try to float a bike rental deal at Fair Park?

I was there this past weekend and they still had the docked bikes by the Texas Discovery Gardens. I would be shocked if anyone rides them. $5.00 for the first half hour (or hour), then $2.50 per half hour after that. Insanity!

Isn't that pretty standard for 'docked' bike share companies? But yeah, I just don't see how these docked companies will be able to compete against dockless. They are more expensive and offer far less flexibility. Sure they are less 'messy', but I feel like the people actually riding these bikes would rather go for the cheap, more flexible option, even if it does look a bit 'messier'.

Bikes seem to be pretty sparse these days, but the scooters are a huge hit. I've only had a chance to ride them once, but I think they are a fantastic addition to the city, and I hope the city can just let the scooters be, and not try and regulate them and potentially scare them off. I think the fact that the scooters cost more and need to be constantly charged will ensure they won't get as 'messy' as the bikes were, so I think this will end up working out really well.

No sooner than most of the bikes have been cleared from in/around the CBD, now Uber has decided to get in the game with 2000 electric-powered bicycles that will be rechargable. They are red, with the name Jump (a company Uber bought out last April). No docks with these either. Video is included with the linkie, where our Mr. Wilonsky is interviewed. He says 2 other companies are interested in the Dallas market, but he's hearing that the city will have more availability of scooters than bikes in the long run.

Interesting. I have seen these in Austin, but didn't realize they were electric. I know the bikes get a lot of hate, but I am glad to see another attempt at bringing bike share to Dallas. Yes it was messy the first time around, but it got people out of their cars and onto the streets, and also paved the way for the scooters which, in my opinion, have been really wonderful for our city.

What I like about electric devices is that they need to be recharged, which means, at some point, somebody will have to pick them up, charge them, and place them nicely. That was the biggest issue with the first bikes was that there wasn't enough of an effort to clean them up.

Given how sprawled out our metroplex is, I think electric bikes will be good for people going slightly longer distances. The scooters are fantastic for quick, short trips, but for trips longer than that, the bikes might be a good alternative.

Who do they think they are fooling they will outlaw these as soon as a few taxpayers complain just like they did with the bikes. The scooters are only surviving right now because the city granted them a delay on taxing the scooter companies. As soon as city hall decides to start taxing Bird and Lime scooters they too will disappear too. We are moving backward not forward here.

cowboyeagle05 wrote:Who do they think they are fooling they will outlaw these as soon as a few taxpayers complain just like they did with the bikes. The scooters are only surviving right now because the city granted them a delay on taxing the scooter companies. As soon as city hall decides to start taxing Bird and Lime scooters they too will disappear too. We are moving backward not forward here.

I'm not sure where you are getting this information, but none of these statements are correct. The City never outlawed the bikes. The City Council adopted a permit structure so the companies could legally operate in the ROW. The four companies currently operating scooters and bikes have approved permits issued from the City. The scooters are surviving now because they are wildly popular and constantly being used. It has nothing to do taxation, and I'm not sure what you mean by that anyway.

JUMP's application for scooters and pedal-assist bikes is currently under review and they plan to launch in early 2019. Time will tell on how popular the pedal-assist bikes will be.

cowboyeagle05 wrote:Who do they think they are fooling they will outlaw these as soon as a few taxpayers complain just like they did with the bikes. The scooters are only surviving right now because the city granted them a delay on taxing the scooter companies. As soon as city hall decides to start taxing Bird and Lime scooters they too will disappear too. We are moving backward not forward here.

I'm not sure where you are getting this information, but none of these statements are correct. The City never outlawed the bikes. The City Council adopted a permit structure so the companies could legally operate in the ROW. The four companies currently operating scooters and bikes have approved permits issued from the City. The scooters are surviving now because they are wildly popular and constantly being used. It has nothing to do taxation, and I'm not sure what you mean by that anyway.

JUMP's application for scooters and pedal-assist bikes is currently under review and they plan to launch in early 2019. Time will tell on how popular the pedal-assist bikes will be.

Here I will put it this way instead. The bikes were being used widely throughout the city until City Hall decided to require permits. They charge them a fee per bike for a much higher cost than the bike companies were able to turn a profit so most of them have pulled out of Dallas entirely. For a few months after the fees were put in place, they only offered the bikes in Uptown and other well to do areas because those were the only areas where the profit margin was still high enough with the new fees. That quickly dropped off though when the bikes were no longer available in the wider supply area. Kinda like the bike share at Fair Park it really works to connect neighborhoods and when you just focus on Uptown you are missing the point altogether.

At the same time, City Hall decided on the permit cost for the bikes they agreed to wait on the scooters until the city and the scooter companies could see how well they were being received and how they were being used. City Hall in a few months will also start cost permitting the scooters as well and that will ultimately affect whether they will stay around too. They may last longer we will see cause scooters are different than bikes in a number of ways i'm sure.

The city of Dallas has a history of killing things like biking, street cafes, food trucks by charging permitting fees large enough to make it not worth the cost of business. Once the city started lowering fees for patios and awnings in urban areas they saw a significant uptick in applications and buildings were finally allowed to design structures that engaged the street and sidewalk. The 1980s was the peak of when a lot of these fees were being installed to generate more tax income for City Hall. Dallas was also exploding at the time so they went largely unnoticed on their potential long-term effects. They usually hurt small business more and big new buildings started removing the complication and cost of these things. Why put in a ground level cafe with doors and a patio on the sidewalk when it would be cheaper and easier to just throw a kiosk in the lobby and save the cost. Cities like Dallas charge for stuff like pots of flowers/plants on the sidewalk, decorative awnings, patios, door of entry, smaller decorative signage, bike racks etc. These things disappeared because cities encouraged it all to disappear by pricing them out.

Food trucks were also priced out on purpose because of a desire to protect brick and mortar fixed-location restaurants. Only recently when cities like Austin started removing/reducing the fees and restrictions did food trucks come back. Their innate ability to cultivate new jobs and nurture small businesses was something ignored until recently. Dallas only mildly modified our food truck regulations because of the trendy pressure so we got a few fancy pricey food trucks by larger companies but very few smaller operations can work within the city of Dallas regulations so our food truck market has dwindled and will drop off because it's being strangled in the crib.

The city has done that to the bike share business as well. City Hall overshot with their permit rate structure and killed off the market before it had time to mature. Many citizens hated the bikes not only visually were they ugly to some parked on every sidewalk but it finally created a critical mass of bike users around the city applying pressure to challenge the car dominance in our city. I saw more cars honking at bikers using the roads than ever before and I can see how that in concert with the dumping of massive numbers of bikes on every street corner sent lots of complaints to city hall to eliminate the problem altogether. City Hall responds to complaints and the bike sharing product was causing lots of a screaming and yelling emails/phone calls from citizens who did not like the implications of bikes becoming a part of the norm in Dallas. City Hall responded overzealously to eliminate the noise by making its extremely impossible to operate bike share in Dallas.

cowboyeagle05 wrote:Who do they think they are fooling they will outlaw these as soon as a few taxpayers complain just like they did with the bikes. The scooters are only surviving right now because the city granted them a delay on taxing the scooter companies. As soon as city hall decides to start taxing Bird and Lime scooters they too will disappear too. We are moving backward not forward here.

I'm not sure where you are getting this information, but none of these statements are correct. The City never outlawed the bikes. The City Council adopted a permit structure so the companies could legally operate in the ROW. The four companies currently operating scooters and bikes have approved permits issued from the City. The scooters are surviving now because they are wildly popular and constantly being used. It has nothing to do taxation, and I'm not sure what you mean by that anyway.

The city started charging the companies $21/bike. Whether you call it buying a permit or paying a tax, the practical effect is the same.

The City allowed these companies to operate for almost a full year before any type of regulations were put into effect. Cities across the country were watching Dallas as we were just about the only city that did not immediately impose regulations. If you think Dallas is over-regulating the industry I suggest you research what other cities are doing. Dallas' fee is inline with other cities (in some cases much lower than in other cities) and we do not place any caps on the number of companies that can operate or the number of units they can deploy.

The bikes were removed for a number of reasons. During the spring of 2018 the overall number of bikes began to decline as the companies were figuring out what the actual demand was. The new ordinance and fee were also part of the reason since the companies would now be charged for the bikes on the street and couldn't use Dallas as a dumping ground anymore. The larger reason for the bike removal was a complete shift in the market from bikes to the scooters. Spin removed their bikes from cities across the country and has been retooling to focus on scooters. Ofo has had a global retraction in their fleets and has pulled out of most countries they operated in. Mobike had such a marginal existence here I'm sure they figured Dallas was no longer a viable market. Somehow VBikes is still in operation. Colleagues of mine that are in this industry stated the Chinese model of bike share was not as successful in the U.S. but the scooters are being proved to be very popular. That is why so many companies are focusing on scooters and not bikes.

The dockless vehicle ordinance that Council adopted in June of this year includes both bikes and scooters. The permit structure and fee are the same for each vehicle type and the bike/scooter companies have had permits for months now. I think what you may be confused on is the City's pre-existing ordinance that banned motor-assisted scooters from being ridden on any publicly owned property. This ordinance was enacted in the early 2000s and the Council action in June modified the ordinance so scooters would be allowed for a six month period. The Council took action recently to extend that period for a full year to allow more time for the scooters to operate.

A large part of the reason dockless hasn't been as successful in the US is regulation and fees. Sure, Dallas' $21/bike was less than Seattle's $50/bike. But, spoiler alert, Seattle's program crashed and burned after that too. Saying that it's lower than another fee that helped kill a market doesn't really say much. The Dallas market is also going to have a much lower ability to eat the fees due to lower demand (it's terrible to bike in Dallas, and things are spread apart).

In the places that allow them, the scooters have been more successful, and I've heard that the economics are better for the companies (namely, they're less expensive). Which is great. But that doesn't change the fact that the imposed regulatory regime was onerous and helped kill what was a potentially viable new mobility option.

If the fee was a charge to pay for the city having to deal with increased 311 calls to clean up tossed, mutilated, or messy bikes etc, it could be justified. But part of the ordinance was that the companies would have to service 311 calls related to the bikes.

So what was the fee for? Wear and tear on the roads? If so, I look forward to local vehicle registration fees of $1,000+. Use of public space? Great, can't wait for the city to start charging everyone for all that free car storage they've been giving away.

The City allowed these companies to operate for almost a full year before any type of regulations were put into effect. Cities across the country were watching Dallas as we were just about the only city that did not immediately impose regulations. If you think Dallas is over-regulating the industry I suggest you research what other cities are doing. Dallas' fee is inline with other cities (in some cases much lower than in other cities) and we do not place any caps on the number of companies that can operate or the number of units they can deploy.

The bikes were removed for a number of reasons. During the spring of 2018 the overall number of bikes began to decline as the companies were figuring out what the actual demand was. The new ordinance and fee were also part of the reason since the companies would now be charged for the bikes on the street and couldn't use Dallas as a dumping ground anymore. The larger reason for the bike removal was a complete shift in the market from bikes to the scooters. Spin removed their bikes from cities across the country and has been retooling to focus on scooters. Ofo has had a global retraction in their fleets and has pulled out of most countries they operated in. Mobike had such a marginal existence here I'm sure they figured Dallas was no longer a viable market. Somehow VBikes is still in operation. Colleagues of mine that are in this industry stated the Chinese model of bike share was not as successful in the U.S. but the scooters are being proved to be very popular. That is why so many companies are focusing on scooters and not bikes.

The dockless vehicle ordinance that Council adopted in June of this year includes both bikes and scooters. The permit structure and fee are the same for each vehicle type and the bike/scooter companies have had permits for months now. I think what you may be confused on is the City's pre-existing ordinance that banned motor-assisted scooters from being ridden on any publicly owned property. This ordinance was enacted in the early 2000s and the Council action in June modified the ordinance so scooters would be allowed for a six month period. The Council took action recently to extend that period for a full year to allow more time for the scooters to operate.

Thank you for the explanation to some of my points and I welcome your interpretation as well but my point still stands as mentioned by another forum member the taxing is too high despite being $21. The city attempted to pick the middle I am sure but they successfully killed the market here in Dallas for many of these companies. I think the global market perspective is something you truly added to the discussion here and I think you for that. I will gladly take that into my education on the matter. The city has a history of discouraging anything that isn't car dependent and I think its less because they are evil and are somehow calculating just that is the accepted norm here and the city staff is used to a method that produces an anti-alternative transit solution. I mean walk down the street and ask anyone who pays their taxes and they are more likely to support choices made by city hall that would appear to allow them to get home quicker in their own car. The taxing/permitting of patios, awnings etc is in the same vein of thinking. All those things were not done of some evil warlord in city hall but a city hall trying to tax things they think should be taxed to pay for that budget every year that is always going to be short on everything we want to fund. I am also well aware they gave them a year to feel things out and I do think that was the right approach and I am not necessarily against some permitting process but after the info was released on the permitting structure it was pretty obvious they shot too high. You can disagree on that of course and I understand that line of thinking but I think the proof is in the results here and our fee structure didn't help it hurt.

mentioned by another forum member the taxing is too high despite being $21.

You are right about that. Actually, nearly every suburb in DFW that allows bikeshare has better regulations than Dallas. They should have just copied from them, since many others actually came first. Generally $500 (total) registration fee, home zones which limit on the number of bikes placed in a single area, and data sharing to improve public infrastructure. Easy.

As I had suggested much earlier in this thread... Any regulations against the bike share should have been directly tied to availability of city services. They could have easily implemented rules that bikes should be parked at bike racks under the condition that there was one available within a certain distance. The city could easily have required the data from the bike companies in an effort to place bike racks in high demand areas, and the bike apps could easily have directed/warned user of non compliance. The result would have been a more livable city... But instead, the city took the easy way and taxed. It requires almost no work, and it made the problem for THEM go away. In the end, the people get screwed due to laziness and irresponsibility at city hall.